Throughout my entire pregnancy I used Palmer’s Cocoa Butter Stretch Mark Cream to try to prevent stretch marks. It worked, because to this day I still don’t really know what one looks like. The closest I’ve come to seeing one is on my husband’s bicep. Weird right? He has them right where the bicep meets the armpit. Anyway, after my daughter was born I was psyched and thought I would still be able to wear a bikini since I had no stretch marks and since the C-section scar was too low for anyone to see. I was wrong. Little did I know that even 3 months after she was born I still had that dark vertical line (linea negra) going from above my belly button all the way down to my pelvic area. That line didn’t even show up until I was like 8 months pregnant. (Even now, almost 9 mths after she was born, I still have traces of that line.)  Another pregnancy battle scar I have is from my navel piercing. I had it since I was 18, and from months 7-9 of my pregnancy I wore a maternity piercing that I got at maternitypiercings.com that was really pretty. But during month 10 of my pregnancy I was getting so many ultrasounds that I just took it out because I had to keep removing it anyway. Well, once the baby was born I pretty much forgot to put the belly button ring back in. (I was forgetting to eat, so there was no way I’d remember about my accessories.) Even though I had that piercing for 13 years, it closed up after 3 months. But I didn’t realize it closed at first because it LOOKED like it was still open, with a hole above my navel. So one day when I remembered to finally put the ring in, I tried and realized that it had closed inside and underneath. So now I have a scar there that looks like I have a hole - an ugly brownish hole since the pregnancy also made it turn brown, along with that line. Gross! All that work I put into preventing stretch marks and I got other marks instead. Not cool. I guess I’ll have to wear a Tankini next year.

Around 3-4 months old, my daughter’s colic FINALLY started to chill out a bit. Like I’ve said in earlier posts, without the swing and the 5 S’s I would have collapsed, so they helped a lot with the crying when it would start up, but I was thrilled that it was happening less and less. She was now letting her true personality show though, and it was pretty apparent that she really was a Diva. She has a nasty temper and is very vocal when you take away something she wants or if you don’t meet her immediate need (and she isn’t even in the Terrible 2’s yet!). She still does the banshee scream at the top of her lungs that turns a crowded room silent. But the positive side of this personality is that she’s really excitable, so when she’s happy that same crowded room will also know it. She literally squeals with delight. And she has the machine-gun/dolphin laugh that babies have, and it cracks me up. To sum up her personality, she’s either insanely upset and screaming OR  ridiculously happy.

Right when the colic started to end, she began having early teething symptoms:  drooling, gumming her hands, and crying a lot. Since she’s a really fussy baby, there was no question that she’d be one of those babies who doesn’t handle teething well. The one upside of having a colicky baby is that I was already used to all the crying, so it wasn’t really different for me. I didn’t want to use medications on her yet since she was only 3 months old, so we just stuck it out.

Another issue that was going on simultaneously was naps, or lack thereof. I began to try a very loose schedule with her of when I could expect her to nap in her bouncy seat, but it didn’t really work. She was pretty predictable of when she would get tired, but no matter how tired she was, she’d only nap 30 minutes. Oh, and at night she still was up to eat like every 2 hours. Fun times. Thirty minute naps meant that I had no free time whatsoever, so I still barely had time to cook, eat, or shower. I ran around the house like a mad woman the second she fell asleep, trying to get little things done here and there. According to Dr. Harvey Karp, the author of The Happiest Baby On The Block and founder of the 5 S’s, babies have a “4th trimester” which is actually their first 3 months of life. Now that my daughter was past the 4th trimester, I hoped that the eating, sleeping, & crying thing would work itself out.

My daughter’s colic was driving us crazy, so my husband and I would frantically run around the house to do the few things that would help calm her, if only for a few moments. The first thing we found that helped was rocking her while she was in her bouncy seat. We would bounce the seat with our foot constantly (she didn’t like the vibration option of the seat). The minute we stopped or walked away from the chair the wailing would begin, so we’d take turns. The other thing that would help a lot was me singing to her. Not just any song, though. It had to be “Meet Me In The Tower” by the band Ours. Is it a coincidence that this was the song I would always play to her using earbuds while she was still in my belly? Who knows, but this song made her stop crying instantly. Maybe it’s the high pitch “head voice” I would use while singing it, or the sound of the scale, but I like to think it was the song itself because my girl has an ear for talent. haha. She would sometimes quiet down from hearing the song “Dizzy,” also by Ours, but Tower was definitely the favorite for her. The problem with both of these “colic-solving” methods is that I would constantly have to rock or sing, otherwise she would keep crying. And I didn’t have any time on my hands as it was.

It was then that I discovered my favorite baby invention EVER: The cradle swing. I’ve heard people say what a great product it was and how I HAD to register for it while pregnant, so I got one at my shower. Even though most people don’t seem to use it until the baby is a little older, I was ready at 3 weeks. It was like instant heaven and I would happily put tons of money into D batteries if it continued to work as well as it did. We used the side-to-side cradle option of the swing, which she seemed to like best. This was the Fisher Price Ocean Wonders Aquarium Swing and it gave me the silence that I longed for. When she had to get the 1st round of immunizations at 1 month old, once we got home she cried worse than she has ever cried before. My husband and I were really upset and scared and didn’t know what to do, so he put her in the swing as a last resort. She instantly quieted down and fell asleep. The only issue with the swing was that it wasn’t a permanant solution since we couldn’t pack up the swing and bring it to a store or anywhere else because it wasn’t really portable.

I started looking online for colic cures, and I read that a lot of people swore by this one book, “The Happiest Baby on the Block” by Dr. Harvey Karp. I got it at the library, and I’m so thankful I did. He’s known for “the 5 S’s,” which are Swaddle, Side, Shhh, Swing, & Suck. I’ve read about a few of those methods before, but they never worked for my baby when I used each method individually. It’s the specific combination of them that brings on a baby’s “calming reflex” and the book explains exactly how to turn it on. It actually worked on my baby! So many people are turned off from swaddling when their baby fusses the first few times from it, but within a few days of it, my baby LOVED it. She would even put her little arms down straight for me as I was wrapping her. I liked using the pre-made, SwaddleMe wraps the best since she couldn’t kick out of it. The main reason I loved swaddling so much is that it allowed me to get sleep. For the first time ever, she finally slept 5 hours straight at about 8 weeks old. Before swaddling, she would have reflex movements where her arms or legs would kick/move, which would wake her up, so wrapping her up prevented this. I highly recommend swaddling, and I used it until my baby was about 4 1/2 months old. As for the “Shhh” step, I never realized how loud you’re supposed to “shhh” until reading the book. You’re supposed to do it REALLY loud, like a vaccum cleaner, which seems weird and counter-productive, but it works. Oh, and even though I was breastfeeding, I did use a pacifer for the “Suck” step since my daughter was nursing okay. (I actually started her on a pacifer at 2 weeks because I couldn’t take the crying and the pacifer made it more dealable). My only regret is I wish someone would have told me about this book sooner, like while I was pregnant. I may have gotten more sleep earlier on. The best thing about the 5’s, is that you can use them while you’re out and about. If you’re baby starts screaming at the store, pick her up and start swinging her back and forth (like REALLY swinging her) while Shhhing really loud. If you have a colicky baby, I strongly suggest you read the book and at least try swaddling for a week. If all else fails, repeat the mantra that I would say over and over again:  it’s only for 3 months or so and that’s such a small amount of time when you look at the big picture. It will be over soon. Good luck!